This is a movie that falls under the heading of one I really didn’t have a pulse on at all. I may have seen the trailer in a mix of upcoming movies at one point. But the reality of how this ended up on my list was that I simply searched for horror movies released this year and last. I wanted to ensure I had enough contemporary fare in my list I didn’t write it down initially because it hadn’t yet found a home on a streaming platform. Then this evening I took a look and found that it had landed on Hulu! After last night’s unfortunate affair I was hopeful that this one might be a bit of an uptick. There’s a bit of connective tissue between the movies if I consider the mannequin from Don’t Look Away to be a monster. This film is about a mutant spider. Well, it’s really more of an alien spider. I think I can also qualify this as my first official creature feature. I’ve had all manner of ghosts and goblins so far but this is my first bona fide monster in the mix. It’s about time.
This is a movie that makes me realize that there should be a trope especially in horror movies of films that take place entirely in a run down apartment building. I know it’s not relegated solely to horror movies. But the reality is that many a time a lone slum can provide all the fodder necessary for a hungry beast or a blood thirsty killer. The self contained nature of the setting turns the residents of the building into the components of a last meal for the nefarious antagonist like stacks in a lunchable. At the beginning of this film we are greeted with a fierce wintry urban landscape as a golf ball sized meteorite careens through a window and into the top floor of a doll house tucked away in a storage room of the apartment of a beastly old Germanic slumlord. Her pale, gaunt figure and short, slicked, platinum hair is only outmatched by her haunting eyes as she sets the terrifying tone of the film almost immediately. Once she storms out of the room, we are introduced to the two main characters in the film. Sting, the extraterrestrial arachnid, and Charlotte, it’s human counterpart. Charlotte is a moody pre-teen with a penchant for traversing the building via the air ducts. She stumbles upon Sting, whose namesake is bestowed by Charlotte shortly after their initial meeting, and brings him back to her bedroom. Charlotte is having a difficult time with a new baby brother and a stepfather she’s unsure about. Being cooped up inside, even amongst the characters in the building, is testing her patience. So the newfound friendship she has with Sting is most convenient.
I’ll do the positives about the film before I jump into some observations about the film as well as some of the negatives. As a whole I found this movie to be relatively serviceable. Nothing overt stood out but it didn’t suffer from a great detriment either. If I had to really point to something I quite enjoyed about the film it would have to be the spider, in and of itself. It was an interesting choice as the villain. They clearly began the story with the antagonist defined as an alien. While I enjoy the fact that Sting is a spider, the possibility for any creature, established or contrived, ,could have been utilized as the shape of the monster. A spider is definitely an adequate predator. And the fact that it began so small gave it plenty of room to grow exponentially. It’s because of this rapid growth and it’s eventual size that dramatically increased the possibility for danger. As the spider grew, so did the danger and the stakes got higher. The way the spider lurked in the background was quite entertaining as well. They had a number of fun takes where you were made to think your eyes were playing tricks on you and then you’d see the spider in all it’s glory. Then to find out that most of the effects for the spider were practical was even better. Frankly, I would have guessed that was the case because it came across that way, but the nice thing about that is that the terror feels more palpable. I know a lot of times you can have truly skilled actors that struggle with delivering a great performance when they are interacting in a scene with a tennis ball on a stick instead of an actual monster. When you are forcing yourself to dig down deep for true fear to manifest on screen, it’s just so much harder to do that with a guy in a green suit than an actual giant spider chasing you. So I think this movie benefitted considerably for going with the real deal instead of everything being CGI.
Secondarily I would like to single out Alyla Browne as Charlotte, Jermaine Fowler as Frank and Danny Kim as Erik. Frank and Erik are smaller supporting roles but the were each really fun characters what I actually enjoyed. Frank was an exterminator who is brought into the building to attempt to quell what is perceived as some kind of infestation as death and chaos spreads throughout the building, beginning with the death of a beloved parrot. Frank is one of the first characters we meet at the beginning of the movie before we get our “4 Days Earlier” screen I anticipated. I’m always kind of torn on the usage of this mechanism. Give you a glimpse of the ending that’s dramatic but incomplete right at the beginning of the film to tease you and then restart to build up to that point. It wasn’t poorly executed here necessarily but I don’t know that it triggered the sign that we were dealing with great storytelling either. Regardless of that, introducing Frank at the top of the film worked well for me. Fowler was funny but not over the top. He was one of the most likable characters in the whole film. Really if I think about it, he was easily my favorite. So kudos to him.
Erik had a similar role in the film. He was an odd duck. He lived alone in his apartment and was doing experiments with fish. He was attempting to cure something happening in the pancreas but I can’t quite remember what that was. He was played to be a loner who is dedicated to science and he did that well. I had this nagging suspicion I knew him from somewhere but when I checked his IMDb I didn’t find a credit I was familiar with in the end. The reason I enjoyed him was for one particular scene where he became an important part of the storytelling in a substantial way. It was a shift that would not have been executable without him and it changed the direction of where the story was going. It was also a bit sinister so it had a great creepy vibe when it came to amping up the scary factor in the film. So I really had to give him credit for that. It was nice to see a relatively inexperienced actor take a small role and do some really great things with it.
Finally is Alyla Browne as the main character Charlotte. I’ll come right out and admit that I like her character considerably less than the two I’ve already mentioned. I don’t know that I’m supposed to like her all that much. One of the problems I find a lot of times with horror movies is the ability to latch on to any character. To me, even if the characters are meant to be thrown away as fodder for a monster or a killer, I need at least one person to be likeable or relatable enough to care. If I don’t care at all then I’m only there for the kills. That doesn’t matter as much if it’s just sort of mindless in that fashion if that part of the film is still entertaining. I’m looking at you Final Destination franchise. The first two films are really somewhat enjoyable to watch and have plenty of characters played by really capable actors who do fantastic work playing them. The films are paced well and the deaths are convincingly tragic and super creepy in how they come about. They execute their death scenes expertly, pun very much intended. Even in the later entries in the franchise, the characters are less capable and the actors are more forgettable and the stories are considerably more uninteresting. But the payoff on the kill scenes are fantastic enough that I can sit through the rest of the tripe no problem. As it stands, without Frank and Erik in this film, I don’t really care all that much about anybody. Even the baby and he didn’t do anything wrong. But if I’m being fair, I think the emotion that Charlotte is feeling is complicated and intricate and for Browne, who has a handful of acting credits but nothing else I’ve seen and only recognize a couple, she’s pretty capable for a 14 year old. The dynamics in her family are strained and as a young teenage girl, she’s dealing with a lot. She wears that well as an angsty teen. This is where I have to assess her talent because her character is wholly unlikable throughout a lot of the movie but she’s a bratty teenager. I don’t know that anyone really has the propensity to “enjoy” a bratty teen even if they are the protagonist of their respective film. In the end there are some really endearing moments and her triumph makes that journey more worthwhile. It’s not perfect but her ability shines through in that so I have to give her credit. She also has the tall order of being the one who has to go from surrogate “mother” to Sting to it’s ultimate hunter/executioner. Her dedication to Sting in it’s infancy is unwavering. When the world turns on Sting, Charlotte is backed into a corner and advocates emotionally. There’s an element of her own struggle to have any control over her life that comes to light in this juxtaposition that is also put together well in Browne’s performance. It may be on purpose or it could just be a pleasant byproduct but it does lend itself to emotional credibility in the finale of the film. And the last thing I’ll say on Charlotte’s behalf is she turns out to be a really smart and capable predator herself when left to defend the building and her family against Sting in the end. It’s very Kevin McCallister-esque but that’s a huge compliment in my book. She’s smart about how she goes about it. They’re pretty obvious early on in establishing what will be a key element in taking down the Spider. But sometimes that’s just how that goes. Charlotte gets credit for the call back and how she employs both offensive and defensive weaponry. Where a building full of adults have tremendously failed, Charlotte becomes their only hope and ultimately that pays off.
What I didn’t like about the film. Really that most of the people in the film were unlikable. While I do stand by the praise of Browne’s portrayal of Charlotte, most of the film she’s an insufferable turd I can’t bear to really endure. But the rest of her family isn’t anything special either. Most of the tenants in the building are weird or off putting. Charlotte’s grandmother has some form of dementia which both feeds into the plot and at times seems to be played for comedic effect. Ultimately it’s just wildly annoying. Her aunt is the specter of a landlord who you’d just as soon see burnt at the stake than watch on screen for more than 2 seconds. Charlotte’s mother and stepfather are entirely useless and emotionally stunted. Her mom is obnoxious and her stepdad is unstable. It all came together in the fact that I said out loud as i watched the film, “Fine, just kill them all already. I’m over these people.” And that’s what takes me out of a film. When there is no one to root for then let’s feed them to the growing alien spider and move on with our lives. The twenty-something year old kids in most horror movies are young and attractive so they are at least pleasant to look at while you’re waiting for them to die. Most of the people in this movie are useful only as food. So, for me, when I don’t have at least one anchor in the movie to keep me invested then I just bow out. Without Frank, this movie teeters on unwatchable. And he’s only in the movie for maybe five or six minutes in the end. At least it feels that way. So even at that 91 minute mark, this flick can be a bit of a trepidatious burn with minimal payoffs throughout.
Ultimately I think this one gets another C rating. I watched it. I don’t particularly hate that I did. I don’t know that I overtly enjoyed myself but I’m not going to specifically tell you to pass on it because it’s a waste. There’s probably just enough redeeming quality in the movie spread across a number of different sorts of notes that watching it once will not kill you. I don’t think I’ll ever revisit this one. I’m certainly not adding it to my collection and I’m very happy I did not pay anything extra to watch it. So that’s how I’ve arrived at my grade on this one. Take that for whatever it’s worth to you and gauge your own sights accordingly. I will say that while I do really enjoy horror films, as a genre they are not a particularly strong category of films for me. Their primary goal is to scare you, right? A comedy is supposed to make you laugh. At the end of 90 minutes if you realize you’ve not done much laughing then it’s not really that successful of a comedy, right? Unless the film really stand out on it’s own as well made, then you’ve got problems. There are some great comedies that aren’t laugh a minute funny, but they do really support themselves in other ways. But a drama where you’re uninterested and and action where the sequences are either cheap or too over the top are the elements that just take you out of the film. I might be a little too hard on horror movies sometimes but to be fair, most of the time they get the least attention. Many times they are a financial vehicle that you can pour a little bit of money into and get a quick buck return on that. So the emphasis on quality is rarely that high. With low expectations and high financial returns, you’re free to return to the vehicle over and over. It’s why we have so many Jason and Michael Myers movies. When you actually turn on middle of the franchise films you’ll see pretty quick how substantially the quality suffers in lieu of throwing together a flick for a buck. Is Sting horrible? Not really. It’s not great either. There are both modern and classic horror movies that really raise the bar. I think most of the time I’m trying to find something that’s either cheesy but fun or truly well made. Unfortunately, most of the genre is regurgitated crap. So a lot of it comes down to cheap jump scares, significant nudity, and/or viciously elaborate deaths. Slap those together in the right order on a shoe string budget and hear that ding ding ding of a cash register and before you know it the franchise is on it’s seventh installment and nobody even cares at all anymore. So I sift through the nonsense so you don’t have to. I’m not actively trying to dissuade people from watching horror movies but I am trying to save you from wasting your time if I think that’s the case. I appreciate the opportunity for my silly little opinions to potentially have any bearing on your imaginary life, nonexistent reader. If you are a real person and you’re actually reading these words, I’m not trying to give you an existential crisis. You do exist, and I’m sorry for that. But in reality, I don’t have any delusion that there’s a real person on the other side of these words. It’s just a fun little catharsis for me in an exercise of flexing my creative writing muscle. So until the next time we meet again faux reader, I’ll catch you on the flip side.
